From: ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com   
      
   In article ,   
    "Suzanne Blom"  wrote:   
      
   > "James A. Donald"  wrote in message   
   > news:in9ha49ldunm2el7ia6dv8g7glv69d8cu4@4ax.com...   
   > > Zeborah:   
   > >> b) Western society is f*cked in the head about sex and   
   > >> gender.  There's this idiotic belief that women have   
   > >> to be cajoled, tricked, and/or forced into wanting   
   > >> sex, whereas men are helpless in the face of their   
   > >> sexual and/or violent urges.   
   > >   
   > > The proposition that western society is exceptionally   
   > > oppressive about women and sex implies that other   
   > > societies exist that are more "normal", which is not   
   > > only false, it is so outrageously false, so blatantly   
   > > false, that it demands that speaker be psychoanalyzed or   
   > > unmasked.   
   > >   
   > > So I call you on that.  Since you cannot possibly   
   > > believe something so absurd, why did you say it?   
   > >   
   > In fact, western society derives in large part from a merger of classical   
   > Greek society, which is the only one that has rape as a dominant theme in   
   > its mythology, and Hebrew thought, which shares a EurAsian patriarchy.  The   
   > origins of the latter are more obscure than the former, but it should be   
   > noted that in early Mesopotamian times, the gods' gender does not seem to   
   > matter very much, changing with the city they're representing.   
   >   
   > That there is now a thin overlay of gender equality on this mixture, I don't   
   > think anyone will deny; but it is often very thin.  The uneven thickness of   
   > the layer requires women to do a delicate dance in figuring out what the   
   > rules are for each situation, place, and time.   
      
   I don't think that answers the question. Do you believe that non-western   
   societies--contemporary, or historical ones that we know a lot   
   about--are exceptionally oppressive wrt women and sex?   
      
   Traditional Chinese society emphasized gender differences, with male   
   treated as clearly superior and in authority over female, much more   
   strongly than modern American society does. I think that's true of   
   traditional Indian society as well. Both of those societies were   
   probably more open wrt sex than western society has been at some times,   
   but not more open than it is now.   
      
   Traditional pre-Islamic bedouin society seems to have had sharp gender   
   role differences as well. My understanding is that Muslim restrictions   
   on the number of wives and Muslim inheritance rules represented a shift   
   towards more nearly equal treatment, although it's possible that that's   
   merely a claim made by modern Muslims to rebut western criticisms. In   
   traditional Islamic society it was possible for women to be legal   
   scholars and there are a few, possibly fictional, accounts of women   
   warriors (as in medieval European literature, of course), but the   
   general picture from the literature is of a gender role division much   
   stricter than ours.   
      
   Are you limiting your claim to the specific issue of female reluctance,   
   seen as justifying male aggressiveness? Would you take the existence of,   
   and concerns about, rape in a non-western society as evidence? Seduction   
   scenes in the literature?   
      
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    http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/   
    Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.   
    Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)